House of Fraser may have closed its London and Cardiff stores, but these were only its brick-and-mortar flagships. Its digital presence remains open for business, but, as Seamus Whittingham (pictured below), MD, Europe, IgnitionOne, tells RetailTechNews, it's potentially an under-used resource that could have helped the troubled retailer change course far earlier and with far less damaging consequences for Britain’s high streets.

House of Fraser is not the first to bow to the snowballing pressures facing the retail industry – and it certainly won’t be the last. Indeed, as long as traditional retailers are slow to adapt in using their digital presence to inform their overarching customer acquisition and engagement strategies, these major closures will potentially continue, further exacerbating the rise of the ‘zombie high street’ in once-thriving local town centres.

House of Fraser’s critics may point to a lack of brand differentiation, a failure to adapt to changing customer culture, and the shaky relaunch of its e-commerce platform last year as the preeminent factors behind its current predicament, but, ultimately, the crux of the retailer’s problems lay in its inability to create a unique and compelling customer experience for today’s shopper. The issue could have been addressed far earlier, had the high street behemoth taken a more proactive approach to leveraging online intelligence.

In today’s dynamic retail environment, many of the most successful brands and retailers are those that treat their website as their flagship store. This concept isn’t about retailers shifting to a purely digital approach; there’s no doubt that an in-store experience is often part of a successful omnichannel strategy. Rather, it’s about aligning all channels to convey a seamless brand identity and compelling customer experience at every touchpoint in the journey. Ultimately, the retailer’s website represents an essential asset in executing this strategy, as well as its best data source for customer insights and performance assessment.

Seamus Whittingham, MD, Europe, IgnitionOne

Today, a retailer’s website is not just a transactional platform; it’s a vital tool for marketing, research, and overall business strategy that can not only boost footfall to physical stores, but also provide valuable customer insights that inform what the physical stores should look and feel like.

By using first-party web data to predict and adapt to changing customer behaviour and demographic shifts, retail marketers can make more effective decisions on factors including product ads and buying cycles to convert new customers and build loyalty with existing ones. Marketers can then map each customer’s purchase habits to better learn when, for example, a customer service representative should engage with them online. Marketers can pinpoint the precise barriers to a particular sale, trial and test the digital triggers that might persuade a customer to convert or return to an abandoned cart. The list goes on and on, and all of this insight can be applied to the physical domain.

Multi-category retail is a particularly challenging beast, in light of the ever-growing competition and increased opportunities to go direct-to-brand. The demise of House of Fraser can be contrasted with a brand such as John Lewis, whose efforts to establish its websites as flagship locations have helped the brand develop a strong digital presence that truly helps the retailer remain relevant on the high street itself.

John Lewis’ concessions assortment may not differ massively from House of Fraser, but the retailer has found ways to carve out its own niche with a seamless, personalised, and unique approach to customer experience and, importantly, one that keeps pace with the ongoing changes in customer shopping behaviour. As part of this approach, John Lewis invested in a digital platform that represents the focal point of a true omnichannel strategy, that reinforces its commitment to a service-oriented, customer-centric approach. The retailer is able to instil customers not only with the absolute certainty that they will find products to delight and excite them – both online and offline – but also with the security that any questions, concerns, and issues will be immediately, effectively resolved, whether through in-store assistance or a straightforward online support system.

With the evolution of traditional notions of customer loyalty (apart from every grandmother’s unfaltering allegiance to Marks & Spencer), the way for concession-based retailers to drive new-style loyalty can only come from the customer experience provided. When a multi-category retailer fails to provide interactions tailored to the customer’s preferences, many customers will not hesitate to consider another retailer, or brand direct, for that personalised buying experience. Ultimately, a seamless customer experience – informed by the customer intelligence that only a flagship website can deliver – will surface the ultimate differentiators that separate growth from decline.